Illegal Internships

I'm NOT crazy: the recent preponderance of internships advertised that clearly should be paid jobs is a) getting worse and b) illegal. Thank you for always reading my mind, New York Times. And thank you, Obama Administration, for trying to turn back the labor abuses that have multiplied since the last guy took office and gutted enforcement.

“If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” said Nancy J. Leppink, the acting director of the department’s wage and hour division.

Ms. Leppink said many employers failed to pay even though their internships did not comply with the six federal legal criteria that must be satisfied for internships to be unpaid. Among those criteria are that the internship should be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution, that the intern does not displace regular paid workers and that the employer “derives no immediate advantage” from the intern’s activities — in other words, it’s largely a benevolent contribution to the intern.

I've seen unpaid internships for jobs that were clearly data entry or worse. I've also witnessed employers fluffing up descriptions to recruit interns who would then be obligated to pitch stories to reporters for most of the week - the PR equivalent of telemarketing.

On the other end, I've also seen unpaid internships demanding skills in complicated software platforms, extensive writing and research experience, HTML expertise and a host of other things that those internships are supposedly there to nurture. Employers seem to have decided that since a lot of college kids learn pretty great computer skills, they don't really need to pay for them. But since this is obviously displacing work that would normally be paid, it's illegal.

Ms. Leppink said many employers failed to pay even though their internships did not comply with the six federal legal criteria that must be satisfied for internships to be unpaid. Among those criteria are that the internship should be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution, that the intern does not displace regular paid workers and that the employer “derives no immediate advantage” from the intern’s activities — in other words, it’s largely a benevolent contribution to the intern.

In addition to being unfair to the interns who do perform drudge work for no money, unpaid internships tend to depress class mobility in this country. Workers need them to make connections and gain the experience employers seek, but generally only wealthier kids - who count on the financial support of their parents -are able to take them. I appreciate that the NY Times addresses this fairness issue.

While many colleges are accepting more moderate- and low-income students to increase economic mobility, many students and administrators complain that the
growth in unpaid internships undercuts that effort by favoring well-to-do and well-connected students, speeding their climb up the career ladder.